King Solomon’s Mines is an 1885 popular novel[1] by the English Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. Published by Cassell and Company, it tells of an expedition through an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain, searching for the missing brother of one of the party. It is one of the first English adventure novels set in Africa and is considered to be the genesis of the lost world literary genre. It is the first of fourteen novels and four short stories by Haggard about Allan Quatermain. Haggard dedicated this book to his childhood idol Sir Humphry Davy.

King Solomon’s Mines – Wikipedia

I decided to read H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mine after it was discussed in commentary of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The novel takes us on a journey in search of a lost mine in the heart of Africa based on a map. In the process, the travelers engage with local culture, undermining the ruling party.

I had not realised that I had already experienced so much of the ‘lost world’ legacy associated with the novel with things like Indiana Jones and various quest games. It was interesting that it was written in response to a wager associated with Treasure Island.

Haggard wrote the novel as a result of a five-shilling wager with his brother, who said that he could not write a novel half as good as Robert Louis Stevenson‘s Treasure Island (1883).[16][17] He wrote it in a short time, somewhere between six[16] and sixteen[15] weeks between January and 21 April 1885. However, the book was a complete novelty and was rejected by one publisher after another. After six months, King Solomon’s Mines was published, and the book became the year’s best seller, with printers struggling to print copies fast enough.[17]

Source: King Solomon’s Mines – Wikipedia

I felt that the speed of writing comes through with “Sheba’s Breasts” and going deep into the mine. Something discussed in the The Rest is History podcast.